Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Recap: Georgetown 46, Temple 45

I wasn't able to watch the game live today - I had Rich Chvotkin to keep me company at work - so I'm watching the game for the first time right now as I post this recap. As I type, we've reached the under-4:00 timeout in the 1st half, and I have to say, this half of basketball has been brutal.

The pace of this game may have seemed glacial, but the 61 possessions was not an exceptionally slow pace for a Hoya game (Georgetown played 6 games last season with a pace of 61 or less).

There's simply no green marks for the Hoyas offensively tonight, as they simply didn't do any single thing well when they had the ball. Okay, I just changed it and highlighted that they never had a shot blocked by the Owls in the game. Woo-hoo!

Temple did themselves no favors today, with <50% shooting from the FT line and 13% on 3FGAs. Even worse for the Owls, in the 1st half they attempted 26 shots from the field, with 24 as jump shots (10 3FGA, 14 2FGA jumpers) - they made only three of them. Of course, some of that should be credited to the Hoyas defense, which didn't give up a lot of space inside.

I originally thought that 44.2 Def. Efficiency would have been some sort of historical low, but just last season the Hoyas held two teams lower (American, Savannah St.) in consecutive games.

Georgetown also had their problems shooting in the 1st half, but also struggled to hang on to the ball to even get a shot off. They did little on the offensive glass throughout the game, although rebounded well defensively.

To Fran Dunphy's credit, Temple adjusted at half time and managed to take 11 of 17 2FGA as layups or dunks in the 2nd half (and made 10 of them). From my eye and for what it's worth, the Owls' big run in the Vesper half (24-6 over 9:21) was mostly against Georgetown's 2-3 zone defense. Thankfully, Temple's struggles at the FT line continued in the 2nd half, with 4 misses on 8 FTA (including twice on the front end of 1-and-1).

In the end, the Hoyas did enough to win the game, especially with some good defensive stops in the last few minutes of the game.

This may surprise most Hoya fans, but the most efficient player today for Georgetown was Chris Wright. While his three turnovers may have been more memorable, Wright was able to score 6 points at the FT line (on 7 attempts) to grind his way to the only 100+ offensive rating in the game.

The most valuable player for the Hoyas was Greg Monroe, and not only for his game-winning layup with 6 seconds left in the game. He also led Georgetown defensively, and his absence from the game was most noticeable in the 2nd half when he sat at 15:12 (Henry Sims came in) and the Owls quickly ran off 7 points on 2 dunks and a layup (and an and-1).

Not much more to add to this one, other than I was glad the good guys pulled it out.

And if you're in a panic over the game, just repeat after me, "It's only November. It's only November.It's only November.Serenity now!"

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